page_title: Conspiracy of the Equals
section_title: Fall of the conspiracy
hierarchical_section_title: Conspiracy of the Equals / Fall of the conspiracy
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: "Attaque du camp de Grenelle par des conspirateurs&#160;: le 24 Fructidor, An 4.eme de la République". Estampe.
context_page_description: The Conspiracy of the Equals of May 1796 was a failed coup d'Etat during the French Revolution. It was led by François-Noël Babeuf, who wanted to overthrow the Directory and replace it with an egalitarian and proto-socialist republic, inspired by Jacobin ideals.
context_section_description: The conspiracy was denounced to the police for a fee, by one of its own leaders: Georges Grisel. Faced with the repression that then fell upon the democratic circles of Paris, several attempted to provoke an uprising, first within the police legion. The Directory considered that the Babouviste propaganda had dangerously agitated public opinion and, on May 2, 1796, it ordered the dismissal and disarmament of a police legion because: "seduced by the Babouviste faction they became more undisciplined every day." After its dissolution, the Babouvistes turned to the soldiers of the 21st Regiment of dragons, who were camped at Grenelle. 
  The Directory thought it time to react; the bureau central had accumulated through its agents, notably the ex-captain Georges Grisel, who had been initiated into Babeuf’s society, complete evidence of a conspiracy for an armed rising fixed for Floréal 22, year IV (11 May 1796), in which Jacobins and socialists were combined. On 10 May Babeuf, who had taken the pseudonym Tissot, was arrested; many of his associates were gathered by the police on order from Lazare Carnot: among them were Augustin Alexandre Darthé and Philippe Buonarroti, the ex-members of the National Convention, Robert Lindet, Jean-Pierre-André Amar, Marc-Guillaume Alexis Vadier and Jean-Baptiste Drouet, famous as the postmaster of Sainte-Menehould who had arrested Louis XVI during the latter's Flight to Varennes, and now a member of the Directory's Council of Five Hundred. 245 arrest warrants were issued by Carnot who intended to put a stop to demands for equality.
  The government crackdown was extremely successful. The last number of the Tribun appeared on 24 April, although René-François Lebois in the Ami du peuple tried to incite the soldiers to revolt, and for a while there were rumours of a military rising.
  The trial of Babeuf and his accomplices was fixed to take place before the newly constituted high court of justice at Vendôme. On Fructidor 10 and 11 (27 August and 28 August 1796), when the prisoners were removed from Paris, there were tentative efforts at a riot with a view to rescue, but these were easily suppressed. The attempt of five or six hundred Jacobins (7 September 1796) to rouse the soldiers at Grenelle met with no better success. A shoot-out greeted them, leaving about 20 dead, 132 captured and many others wounded.
  The trial of Babeuf and the others, begun at Vendôme on 20 February 1797, lasted two months. The government, for reasons of its own, depicted the socialist Babeuf as the leader of the conspiracy, even though people more important than himself were implicated; and his own vanity played admirably into their hands. And Darthé, who has himself locked up in utter silence during the debates was accused of writing an order for the execution of the Directors. On Prairial 7 (26 May 1797) Babeuf and Darthé were condemned to death. On hearing his death sentence, Babeuf struck himself in the courtroom with several blows, and was carried dying the next day to the scaffold. Darthé, who had also tried to commit suicide, was guillotined alongside him on at Vendôme, Prairial 8 (27 May 1797), without appeal. Some of the prisoners, including Buonarroti and Germain, were deported; the rest, including Vadier and his fellow former-Montagnards, were acquitted. Drouet succeeded in making his escape, according to Paul Barras, with the connivance of the Directory.
caption: Depiction of the unrest in the military camp of Grenelle
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